Well, this is a relief. I like Krisiun, and I would consider "Conquerors Of Armageddon" a Death Metal essential, but they have been in a slide for a while now. First "Ageless Venomous", while nearly as well-written as "Conquerors", had incredibly shitty drum production, and then came the incredibly lame "Works Of Carnage", which was not only boring, but contained only about 25 minutes of actual new music. I was this close to just writing the band off altogether, but thankfully "Bloodshed" is something of a return to form.

To start with, there are actual riffs on this CD, pretty damned catchy ones too. On their last outing Krisiun seemed married to the 'if-we-play-fast-no-one-will-notice-we-have-no-riffs' theory, but "Slain Fate" and "Ominous" start things off well with solid riffing and coherent songwriting, and the quality does not drop off on the new material. "Bloodshed" stays solid all the way through. The production is good, and not so pro-tools mashed as the last album, so this CD sounds more old-school. The mix is better, and as a whole the music just sounds more alive.

Now I do have to call the guys on how scanty, once again, this is. Overall there are just about 22 minutes of new music on this CD – even less than on "Works Of Carnage". Now the new material here is much better than on that album, so I am prepared to cut them some slack on that, but still. This band produced the solid "Conquerors Of Armageddon" and "Ageless Venomous", both over 40 minutes long without bonus tracks or other crap to pad them out. What gives? Here the band has elected to fill out the CD with the entire "Unmerciful Order" EP from 1994 as 'bonus', though it is obviously just to make this CD long enough to count as a full album. Not that the EP stuff sucks, it doesn't, even with the more primitive recording.

"Bloodshed" is definitely a step in the right direction for this band after the sad "Works Of Carnage", as this CD reminded me of why I like Krisiun, and that they can pound out some killer Death Metal when they can be bothered to. This album is an improvement, and a worthy purchase for fans, but sadly, I do not really expect Krisiun to ever again match their earlier works.